


Rue

by fingerlick (bluedreaming), kaithartic (bluedreaming)



Category: Actor RPF, American Actor RPF, EXO (Band)
Genre: Blood, Disturbing Themes, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Original Character Death(s), Rape Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4975183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/fingerlick, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/kaithartic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't honour the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rue

**Author's Note:**

> **Please read the warnings in the tags.**
> 
> This story was written for [ateliers](http://ateliers.livejournal.com) (round 2015).
> 
> It is inspired by the painting [Onement VI](http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2013/may/16/barnett-newman-sublime-bargain-price) by Barnett Newman, as well as the painting [Ophelia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_\(painting\)) by Sir John Everett Millais and the character [Ophelia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia) from Shakespeare's [Hamlet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet), from where the included quotes are excerpted.
> 
> While reading this story, please listen to the _Kill Your Darlings_ soundtrack. [Apple Music](https://itun.es/ca/hG8ST) • [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/2HSboqO4DXzyO5anezupXN)

_". . .there's rue for you,_  
_and here's some for me;_  
_we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays;_  
_O, you must wear your rue with a difference."_  
—Ophelia

❁ 

There's a line trailing along the current; pale fingers floating in the dark as Yixing blinks water out of his eyes.

"Here we are," Dane says, sweeping his hair back with dripping fingers. "One on each side of the stream." He laughs, but his voice sounds like shattering glass. There's a smear of shadow on his cheek and Yixing reaches across the line in the water, as his fingers brush the skin of Dane's face and burn. Flowers are blooming in the tiny ripples echoing out, puce and crimson and violet like the dark kisses left behind to anchor hips, the smooth rocking motion of the sea, the tides growing angry as the storm approaches.

Yixing's wrist throbs, he must have twisted it somehow, in the aftermath, in the process, he almost wonders if he could have sprained it in anticipation, _though how can someone anticipate something like that?_

"Do you have any regrets?" Dane asks, in the dark, his eyes reflecting the pale light of the moon, his lips slightly parted as though there are so many more things he could ask but won't, knee deep in water, the reeds tickling the skin of their legs, smooth things brushing by beneath the current. There are poisonous snakes here, in the water sometimes, and Yixing wonders if he deserves to die. _No._

"I regret that he touched me," he says finally, and runs the tip of his tongue ever so slightly over his split lip, where teeth had grasped, a kind of verbal violence surpassing words. "I regret that I couldn't stop him." He doesn't look down at the water, the white line in the middle separating the before and the after.

"He'll never touch you again," Dane says with vehemence, the words shooting out of his mouth, and Yixing looks away. He's tired, now, afterwards, tired of not crying, not letting everything go.

The face in the water is so peaceful, floating there, fingers tangling with flowers, hair radiating like a corona. _You could never hurt anyone,_ Yixing thinks, looking down, but the ache inside speaks differently.

"I've forgotten his name," Yixing says, looking back up across the body to meet Dane's eyes. "He doesn't exist to me anymore. He never existed." Yixing swallows, running his fingers over his face. They come away sticky.

"I still remember," Dane says, and Yixing doesn't know how to say, how to explain, _I don't want him to be remembered. Don't honour the dead._ He lets it slip away instead, a body moving with the current down to the sea, where seagulls will peck out its eyes, eat the lying tongue out of its mouth, because it's an _it_ now, and it always was.

There's nothing separating them now, only flowers in the water that swirl, mixing as they disappear with the ripples; Yixing steps forward and the moon peeks its head out from behind the clouds.

But there are no angels tonight, no angels to watch over them as they cry themselves to sleep, as anyone sleeps, dreams nightmares and wakes up screaming, just broken people, and the flowers are only blood and bruises, as Yixing plants the softest of kisses on Dane's cheek over the sharpness of his cheekbones, eyes closed.

His hands are curled around emptiness.

_"Sweets to the sweet."_  
—Queen Gertrude

❁ 

**Author's Note:**

> I was recently going over sections of Hamlet, and Ophelia's story in particular caught my attention. I'll refrain from making this a literary study, but it seemed to me, upon further reflection, that Ophelia was the victim of rape.
> 
> This story is titled _Rue_ , for regret.
> 
> The story [keeps circling](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/360345.html) happens some time before this story takes place.


End file.
